Comments

+1

I do like no-touch icing. As for everything else, I only like the changes that help enforce/more accurately call the existing rules of the game, such as the secondary yellow “goal line” and the thinning of the mesh on the top of the net to make it easier to correctly call goals.

Dustin apparently misses the point that nobody cares how “fun” it is for him to play.

It’s also not necessarily about attracting new fans or anything.

What it IS about is progression and growth. Look at MLB. They’re so dead-set against changing anything from the way it was 80 years ago, and the result is that less and less people care about the sport now. And all because some old guys are hung up on the good ol’ days.

So World Series games still start at 8pm or 9pm on weeknights when kids can’t and won’t watch. They resist instant replay even though everyone can see they badly need it, and they resist it simply for the sake of resisting change.

Or look at FIFA. They resisted change and in this World Cup FIFA was basically repeatedly publicly humiliated by how backwards and stupid their approach is to rules, technology, and progression. So they now have been forced into making changes anyways.

Hockey has had rule changes for years and years before Dustin was even born. And guess what Dustin? It’s going to continue to change and tweak. Because that’s what a sport does if it doesn’t want to become extinct.

Right on Primis!!!
I don’t care what any player says. They work for ME, the FAN.
He forgets that all the players thought it was ‘fun’ before the lockout when you were allowed to tackle anyone 80’ from the puck without penalties.
Suddenly, when changes were made, all the players realized how craptastic hockey was before they enforced rules that have been in the rulebook for years.

Watch a game today and tell me how many clean, nice goals you see.
9 out of 10 goals will be as follows; rebound, deflection, screen. Every goal is determined within 4’ of the crease. You hardly ever see a nice 15-foot snapper. Or how about a 20’ slapshot? Or how about just a nice clean wrister from 10 feet in?
It doesn’t happen!

And if cavemen like Brown don’t think the NHL needs to be proactive he’s even dumber than I thought.

I’m not saying we need 10 goals per game. On the contrary. I’m not arguing that we need more quantity, but we need more quality.
And if tweaking the game here or there accomplishes that, then MY MONEY will go towards paying the salary of guys like Brown who don’t seem to give a crap about what the fans think.
When my family watches me play hockey, I think they see it through my eyes. I think I’m going 100mph and making great moves. But if you actually watch your own game you realize you’re bad.
Brown should STFU and thank God and the fans everyday that he can make millions pumping in 20 goals and 60 points.

Yeah, FIFA needs goal line technology and MLB needs to expand replay, I wouldn’t disagree there. Just saying that I think your comparison is flawed. The NHL is grasping at changes because they’re the ones always teetering (relative to sports like MLB and FIFA) on the brink of extinction.

Nathan, you forget that baseball DID make changes to help the game out.
They lowered the pitching mound and are using a juiced ball.

Still, MLB is losing viewers and it’s not growing. NHL games outsell MLB video games for crying out loud.

The NHL must continue to evolve.
Remember when the NHL didn’t have blue lines, had 6 skaters aside, didn’t allow forward passes and goalies couldn’t leave their feet?

Everyone thought the game was fine prior to the lockout but it wasn’t and most (including players, coaches, GMs and fans) didn’t notice until they were allowed to watch a cleaner, faster product.

Who’s to say that fattening the bluelines or forcing PK units to clear the zone wouldn’t also help the game. Everyone might say “We should have done this years ago!”.

In the end, it’s an R&D camp. What harm is it? The NHL is at least 2 years away from making any changes from this camp.
But I don’t think anyone has to worry. As long as we have the same dinosaurs like Brian Burke giving input the game will stay stagnant forever.

Can’t wait to watch 1000 more screen, rebound and tip goals this year. Ooh, a blocked shot! Ooh, an overstuffed goalie makes another ‘great’ save with sound positioning and making himself look big! How exciting!

That’s my take. I full acknowledge that many of these propose rule changes are ridiculous, but what’s the harm in testing them out in a setting like this. At worst, its a publicity event, and it builds some momentum for the season. And who knows, maybe something that sounded absurd will actually work or even spawn a better idea. Test things out and see what happens.

Nathan, you forget that baseball DID make changes to help the game out.
They lowered the pitching mound and are using a juiced ball.

No, I’m not forgetting that at all. In fact, that is just a further example that supports my point. Change doesn’t really directly relate to the success of a sport. MLB is frequently criticized for its “traditionalism,” yet it has had numerous eras and sweeping changes that have modified it throughout its history. And one thing that’s stayed fairly constant among all the changes that happened and those that did not, was that baseball has been popular.

MLB is “shrinking” right now, but if you look at the last decade it has been one of incredible growth. And shrinking or not, it’s still more loved than everything in N.A., save for the NFL.

Now you’re using an exceptional, hyperbolic example that doesn’t really even compare. Professional baseball used to be played without gloves, and the ball could be caught on a hop. In both cases, we’re talking about the early days of the organized games, and like anything in the world, maturation follows an exponential curve that flattens out over time.

Everyone thought the game was fine prior to the lockout but it wasn’t and most (including players, coaches, GMs and fans) didn’t notice until they were allowed to watch a cleaner, faster product.

Totally disagree… and this isn’t a direct comparison to what’s being considered with some of these other rule changes. Coming out of the lockout, the big “change” wasn’t actually a change at all—it was just an emphasis on calling the rules in the rulebook as they’re written.

In the end, it’s an R&D camp. What harm is it?

Zero harm. In fact, it does a lot of good. You’re not understanding what I’m saying and you’re taking a few phrases from a Dustin Brown tweet and inferring things that aren’t really there. The camp is very important because it allows us to have discussions like this.

My position is that the biggest detraction from NHL games is the poor and inconsistent officiating and the lack of protection for the players. As such, I think changes like no-touch icing, the yellow “goal line,” and thin mesh on the net’s top make too much sense not to implement immediately.

Let’s make the changes that will allow the game to be played, officiated, and scored as it was intended to be, and if there are still “problems” we can move forward then. But from my seat, I’ve seen a lot of great hockey games that are ruined by a poor video review, a critical missed call, a critical phantom call, or a pathetic makeup call. Fix these problems first that don’t involve changing the foundational rules of the game.

Can’t wait to watch 1000 more screen, rebound and tip goals this year. Ooh, a blocked shot! Ooh, an overstuffed goalie makes another ‘great’ save with sound positioning and making himself look big! How exciting!

If you don’t like it, don’t watch it, right?

I think this is just the natural order of things. The game will never return to the late ‘70s and ‘80s like you want it to.

As the financial stakes within a sports league get higher and higher, clubs, coaches, and players do more and more radical things to succeed. The stakes are too high for each and every club for the game to ever open back up. Everyone wants to win so desperately that they will clutch, grab, fight, trap, dump and chase, and collapse around their crease—whatever gets the win.

And thank parity for this as well—when you had a league with a few great teams in it, it forced the opposition to open up. The great teams were so good that no matter what the opposition did, they would get scored on, and as a result would have to try to return the favor, opening the flow of the game. With Li’l Gary’s parity in place, this isn’t the case any more. Even the rift between #1 and #30 in the standings is small enough that on most nights #30 could play a tight, low-scoring, one-goal game, giving themselves a chance to win in OT or a shootout.

This is all inevitable. Short of banning shot-blocking or the butterfly, the game will continue for decades to be based around dirty goals and ugly plays.

Another thing to consider, there is such a thing as staying one step ahead.

While a lot of the ideas at the R&D camp may seem like dumb things now, in a year or two they might not seem so dumb. And they’ll already have a little bit of data to work with then, in terms of experimentation.

My position is that the biggest detraction from NHL games is the poor and inconsistent officiating and the lack of protection for the players.

The problem with those two things are they are the *exact* same two problems in every… single… sport now. The NFL, NBA, MLB are all plagued by bad calls now. You can blame instant replay on TV for a bit of them, but the fact is IR has been around long enough that there weren’t so many instances 10 or 20 years ago. Even something like NASCAR is having issues with rulings, rules, etc.

As for player safety… again, all sports having the same problem. While something like No touch Icing would help a little, it’s like removing a small twig from a fire that’s already burning.